5 Moments Of Soccer Perfection

Being a sports fan is an intensely personal thing. The sports you choose to follow, the teams you root for — none of those decisions are based on objective qualifications. The same goes for the sporting moments that stick with you for a lifetime.

The Champions League final between Dortmund and Bayern this Saturday is sure to leave an imprint on many a fan, and is just as sure not to leave a mark on others. So in the spirit of personal fandom, here is Simon Kuper's list of the moments in soccer he'll never forget.

-AskMen Editors

“I have measured out my life in soccer matches,” wrote Nick Hornby in his classic English fan’s memoir, Fever Pitch. I think we all have. Here are the five soccer matches that I expect to remember till I die. (No apologies for the Dutch tinge –- soccer is mostly about where you grew up.)

FC Den Haag–FC Utrecht, 3-1, The Hague, Netherlands, 1979

I must have been 9 years old, and my father drove my brother and me in the car. We were a British family living in Holland because my dad had a job there, and one day he decided to reward our nagging and take us to a real professional soccer match.

Thirty-four years later, I can still see the Jehovah’s Witness who played full-back for Den Haag scoring the opening goal. But what I remember best is the crowd: young thugs of the late 1970s, many of them presumably grandfathers now, running up and down the terraces shouting and gesticulating at the police, as was the custom then. I remember my brother not being able to read the scoreboard. That day set him off on a lifetime in glasses.

And I remember the sheer unaccustomed thrill of being in the center of the world, in the place where life was happening, instead of sitting at home reading soccer magazines. The highlights of Den Haag-Utrecht were on TV that evening! People around Holland saw them. On the sofa at home we strained to see if the TV cameras had caught perhaps a flash of our coats.

Looking back on the match, what strikes me is that we could replicate almost exactly the same experience today, if my dad and brother and I all flew to Holland. Everything in life changes -– people die, you move, you change -– but professional soccer changes least of all. Den Haag are now called ADO Den Haag, they’ve moved to a different stadium nearby and there aren’t so many young thugs there anymore, yet the essential ritual of game-day remains intact. That is one of life’s comforts.

I left Holland forever in 1986, but I still support the national team, and almost every Dutch fan agrees that the most stirring match in national soccer history was this one in Hamburg. Even some foreigners feel it. My Israeli friend Shaul says that whenever he feels blue, he plays the tape of “that game.” “But which game, Shaul?” I like to tease him.

In that game, all of Dutch soccer history came together. Firstly, we were playing our great rivals, the Germans, just 43 years after liberation. And then, in 1988, we had perhaps our most glorious team. Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit, et al. played a joyous Dutch “total soccer” that showed up West Germany. In the 87th minute, Van Basten slid home from an impossible angle, and we had won. The Dutch poet Jules Deelder wrote of that goal, in a poem titled "21-6-1988":

Those who fell Rose cheering from their graves

In Holland, millions went onto the streets to celebrate. It was reportedly the biggest public gathering since liberation. I was 18 years old then (it was the week I finished high school), and I ran onto our empty London suburban street waving my bottle of Heineken in triumph. Finding nobody else to celebrate with, I went round to our German neighbors.

“Holland were fantastic!” said our Stig.

“That Rijkaard is a handsome man,” said his wife, Alice.

“You deserved it,” said Stig, handing me another beer.

That Sunday, Holland beat the Soviet Union in Munich to win the European Championship, still the only prize the team has ever won. I was there in the stadium that afternoon, but the TV game against Germany was better.